Basic Needs
by red-dying-angel
Summary: Gene lives alone on his ranch, his family gone excpet for his uncle who lives in a nearby town. Living without human company starts to take its tole on him, but during one summer, things start to change in his life.
1. Go get 'em Cowboy

**Go get 'em cowboy**

Gene hit the snooze button on the alarm clock. 'Its too early', he thought. It was always too early. Work was simple, wake up before 9, feed the pokemon, run the drills with the vulpix, growlithe, eevee, and houndour, walk the ponyta, and coach the cyndaquil, quilava, charamanders, charmeleons, and flareon on maintaining their streams of fire. After that, give them their second meal, read some of the younger ones a story, and go to bed after that. Every Sunday he would ride out with three of the six rapidash and re-supply for the on coming week. Usually he took three of the four female, Prissy, Sophie, Marie, and Venus, leaving two the males, Carlos and Gabriel, behind. He'd get food for the pokemon and himself, and occasionally new clothes and other things like medical supplies, story books, fire stones for the vulpix and eevee, and fire wood.

In all honesty, he was gentle with Marie, since that was his own personal rapidash that his late mother had given to them. All the eevee he had were bought from another breeding rancher friend of his, Moses, who brought in his eevee litter ever 6 months. Moses would take care of them for the first six months after they were born, and then sell them. Gene took care of them for 2 months after that before using the firestones he'd bought, evolving them into flareon. Then he would train them for another 4 months and sell them again.

All of the senior pokemon on his ranch could maintain themselves, and for every different kind was one that was his personal pokemon. His arcanine and ninetails, Bruce and Bon who were given to him by his father who specialized in dog type pokemmon, the houndoom, Crow his uncle Allister had given him, the typhlosion, Oso that his grandmother had given him, his charizard, Axel that his grandfather had given him, and finally his flareon, Dante who he had raised himself.

His ranch was about a good 20 acres of dry desert, with no plants. His ancestors had chosen this plot of land since raising fire pokemon could start fires if there were too much greenery. But outside of that there was life in the barren desert, not much, but life none the less.

All of the pokemon ate different foods, the dog and lizard types would eat a special mix of Tauros meat, the horse types would eat basic oats, and cyndaquill and eevee needed miltank milk.

After they had all been fed, Bruce and Bon would lie down next to each other, Gene would sit down and lean with his back against Bruce's warm flank, and the vulpix, growlithe, charmander, eevee, and cyndaquil would gather around a small fire while Gene would read them a bed time story. The ponyta preferred to stay near their mothers and protective fathers at night, and the houndour would stay under the protection of their leader, Axel, the only houndoom on the ranch. The only one who wasn't with a group at night was Dante. Dante loved having gene around him, but only when it was just Gene. Occasionally they would play when Gene had time, and sometimes Dante even came for the bedtime story, but usually would run off and stare at the moon until bedtime. Then Dante would curl up next to Gene in his bed and sleep by his side.

It was like that every week. He would work all week and take Sunday off to re-supply and just rest. Every week, every month, and every year since his father had died of old age and his uncle moved into the town to take care of the supply and demand. Gene was the only rancher left. And he enjoyed being with the pokemon every day, but sometimes he'd lie awake at night, lonely and wishing that he had someone to talk to; to have a conversation with. The pokemon would listen to him talk, understand his emotion along with key bits and phrases, but they couldn't talk back. In fact, the majority of his talking was commands, reading the stories, and talking to people in town every Sunday. Until she came along that summer, looking for somewhere to help out. Her name was Juliana, and her dad didn't want her getting into trouble due to boredom, even though she was almost an angel. And she was an angel, to Gene at least.


	2. Silhouettes in the Sun

**Silhouettes in the sun**

It'd been a long day's work, longer than he'd seen in awhile. "Damn near everything that could've gone wrong did" he said to himself. He'd decided to ride Venus today, and let Prissy and Sophie handle the cargo. Venus looked back at him with one of her eyes, Prissy and Sophie gave him a side glance. They could all sense his tension. The train arrived 2 hours late, making him have to stay in town that much longer than he had to. Some kids decided to try stealing some of the food he'd gotten, a quick shot in the air from the Makarov semi automatic sent them crying to their mothers. He always kept Makarov in a holster around his leg, concealed by the leg of his pants.

At home, he had a Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol in his nightstand and a Saiga 410K hunting carbine under his mattress, all of which he loaded, cocked, and on safety at all times. The last thing he carried on him was an 8 ½ inch straight edge hunting utility knife looped through his belt on the back of his hip.

As soon as he got home he just wanted to lie down and get some sleep. Today wouldn't be a good day to read a story, he was just too frustrated. On the way back he saw and desert ekans glaring at him through those yellow eyes and camouflaged skin. Only it wasn't staring at him, it was staring at Prissy, and she was staring back at it, steering away from it, getting closer and closer to him and Venus. He pulled out the Makarov, lined up the sight between sulfuric orbs, and shot once making the head pop like a blood balloon. He grimaced and gripped the gun harder, unloading the rest of the magazine at it.

The raipidash stared at the mangled corpse; the tip of the barrel of the Makarov had wisps of smoke leaking from it. Gene blew at it, ejected the magazine, replaced it with an auxiliary he kept in his inner coat pocket; then continued his way to the ranch.

Once he arrived, he felt a little bit better, still tired and sore, he was about ready to take a hot shower and call it a night early. He'd already started undressing, his straight black hair hanging at his shoulders, and gotten his shirt off, when he heard the growlithe and houndour barking at something outside. They were going crazy,usually if it was just another pokemon it would only be a few of them, but in this case if it hadn't been for the chain link fencing they'd already be out there ripping apart whatever it is that'd gotten them so worked up. He grabbed the Desert Eagle from under his pillow, just in case it was a wild ursaring intending to eat some of his pokemon.

He came outside, the .50 caliber pistol in the back of his pants; he covered his eyes to black out the bright rays of the falling sun, to see two people riding in on rapidash. One was taller and heavier set than the other, more petite silhouette riding right next to the other. "Now who the hell could that be?' he whispered to himself in a gruff voice.


End file.
